Microforming of Metallic Glasses with Laser Micromachined Polyimide Dies

摘要

We performed superplastic microforging and microextrusion of La-based and Pt-based metallic glasses using polyimide microdies fabricated by an excimer laser micromachining system. Superplastic forming can be performed at low applied stresses below 10 MPa and low temperatures below 570K in each material's supercooled liquid temperature range, since engineering plastics, such as a polyimide, are used for the die material. With this system, we fabricated microdies for microgears. Applying superplastic microforging and microextrusion, we superplastically formed micro L-channel shafts, micro cantilevers and microgears of 500, 100 and 40 micrometers in pitch circle in the supercooled liquid state. These results demonstrate the advantages of metallic glasses and microforming techniques employing laser-micromachined polyimide dies.